Hereinafter the word “beverage” is intended to indicate any of coffee, water, ice, drinks, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,290, in the name of Francois Ciekanski, discloses a beverage vending machine provided with a motorized apparatus for picking up a cup from a cup stack, positioning the same under a beverage dispensing unit for filling with a drink and, finally, guiding the cup to a delivery recess of the machine accessible by the user. The apparatus comprises a motorized, horizontally rotatable, arm provided with a fork-shaped end portion. Each cup has a frustoconical configuration such that, when dropped from the cup stack, is supported by, and positioned between, the prongs of the fork.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,727,609, in the name of Michael Terence Knight et al., discloses a drink vending machine comprising a cup conveyor apparatus comprising an horizontally moveable arm having a fork-shaped end portion for receiving and holding a cup. The arm receives a cup from a vertical stack and moves the same cup first to a dispensing unit for filling, and thereafter to a delivery position to deliver the cup to an operator or the user.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,074,341, in the name of William S. Credle Jr. et al., discloses an automatic beverage dispensing machine provided with a motorized conveyor for collecting the cups from different sized drop tubes and guiding the same into a filling position. As shown in FIG. 5, the conveyor is provided with an cup holder which can be moved along a rail by an endless screw. The cup holder is made by two L-shaped walls normally arranged to form a support for the cup. The walls are hinged on respective shaft and operated so as to rotate, thereby opening the holder, when the cup has to be dropped.
Other prior art conveyors are known to be provided with a carousel for the positioning of the cups picked up from the drop tubes, disclosed by French patent application FR 2629047, international application WO 99/32392 and Japanese patent JP 3103208.
Prior art solutions have several drawbacks. Motorized conveyors/holders have a complicated design, are difficult to assemble and to operate, are expensive, and require rigorous adjustment of the movement. Motors, switches, end stroke controls, photocells, etc., are often provided for controlling and regulating the movement of the different conveyor parts.
There are several reasons for avoiding the cups from standing on their bottom. For instance, dropped cups can easily bounce upon touching the flat surface, thereby jeopardizing the proper positioning of the same cup. This problem can be serious when the conveyor is for positioning the cups under a beverage dispensing nozzle. If a cup overturns, the nozzle cannot fill the same cup and the dispensed beverage is lost, this leading to a void dispensing cycle. Moreover the beverage flow dispensed by the nozzle, and impinging the overturned cup, can be improperly dispersed within the machine, this easily causing soiling of the same machine and particularly its beverage dispensing area.
Soiling can also occur to cups correctly dropped in the vertical standing position. In fact the flat surface on which the cups stand is subject to soiling by the droplets of the dispensed drinks which come out of the cups or which leak from the dispensing nozzles. This leads to soiling of the cups bottom. Users can be negatively affected by this problem in that they can get dirty while handling the cups.
Another drawback is related to the size of the cups and the filling of the same by one or more dispensing nozzles. When cups having different sizes are provided, typically having a frusto-conical shape with different diameters and/or height, location of the dispensing nozzle(s) within the beverage dispensing machine depends on the distance of the same nozzle(s) from the flat surface on which cups stand. In other words, the dispensing nozzle(s) must be located within the machine at an height from the aforesaid flat surface sufficient for the taller cups to be properly positioned under the nozzle(s). The flat surface is then a reference plane for designing the drink dispensing machine and its cup conveyor. On the contrary, the need is felt for a conveyor and holder which allows for the proper positioning of differently sized cups under the dispensing nozzle(s), independently by the height of the cups.